This "war against terrorism" is in
fact an open declaration of war against the peoples of the developing
world; initially the peoples of the Middle East and Africa, and
ultimately the peoples of South and Central America and the Caribbean,
all Asia, the South Pacific and the islands of the Seas - - some
four-fifths of humanity.

It is a desperate attempt to meet and
overcome this developing world's growing challenge to the continuation of
four centuries of European and American hegemonic domination,
exploitation, suppression, insult and injury by its executors in America
and Europe.

In pursuit of this objective the events of September
11 are being used to justify the imposition of a wide range of military
and socio-political measures gravely endangering democracy as we know
it; measures that have as their objective the emergence of an
authoritarian, military/corporate state in the U.S.A. This gives rise
to serious question as to who really planned and executed the
September 11 events.

The fact that the overwhelming majority
of the peoples of the developing world are peoples of color, or are
perceived of as peoples of color, explains the ease with which support
among the majority populations of Europe and North America is being
generated behind the myth of a "war against terrorism". Four centuries
of the European African slave trade and the cruel exploitation of the
human and natural resources of the African continent have been and are
today justified by the myth of an inherent white superiority facing an
inherent black inferiority.

The church, the State, the academy and
the corporate boardroom led the effort, meeting with little resistance.

Today hated Pakistanis and Indians in the U.K are called "blacks"
and hated Chechens in Russia are called "blacks".

The immediate
danger facing the world today is the conviction among white Americans,
including leaders in government, business and the military, that
peoples of color globally are inherently inferior to whites and are
therefore capable of committing, indeed eager to commit, the most
heinous of crimes against "the hated and envied European/American" This
widely held conviction, that has dominated US foreign policy from the
country's' earliest days, undermines reason and sanity in the execution of
this "war against terrorism". And, it also inhibits resistance.

There is widespread wariness and considerable resistance to this
"war against terrorism" throughout the world of peoples of color,
although the media and government spokespersons minimize or ignore it.
And, although it is in great measure muted, confused and uninformed, there
is also widespread wariness and resistance to this "war against terrorism"
among peoples of color in the U.S. and throughout Europe.

In this
context consider the deafening silence of the TV pundits and the media
generally regarding the largest, most easily identifiable, homegrown
body of Moslems in the country, the black Nation of Islam and its leader
Minister Louis Farrakhan. The most strident and the most consistent voice
in America in support of the rights of the Palestinian people has been the
voice of Minister Farrakhan.

That black people in the U.S. listen
to his voice was dramatically demonstrated by the turn out for the
Million-Man March held on the Mall in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 16, 1995.
Anyone conversant with the-man/woman-on-the street in the black urban
community today knows the extent and the character of the guarded respect
in which "The Nation" is held in those communities across the country. At
the same time the pro-Israeli, Zionist establishment in the U.S. count
Minister Farrakhan as domestic enemy number one. And, no black leader that
refuses to condemn and castigate Minister Farrakhan can curry favor from
that establishment.

The drive to justify religious profiling in
order to seek out terrorists, a result of the September 11 events, opens
up the Nation of Islam to a major assault on two fronts: racial and
religious profiling. That assault has already begun and black communities
across the country know it.

Peoples of color around the world, but
particularly African peoples, were stung by the behavior of the U.S.
at the United Nations Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South
Africa recently.

In one grand, arrogant gesture, withdrawal, the
U.S. refused even to consider the charge that Israeli practice in the
Occupied Territories constitutes racism, and that reparations and
compensation for four centuries of African slavery, natural and human
exploitation and humiliation is justified. And yet, in answer to the
question: "Why do they hate us so?" comes the repeated matra over and
over and over: "It's not what we do. It's what we are."

How
does that jibe with the U.S. action in Durban and the current feeble
effort to convince the Palestinian and Arab masses that the U.S. is
now suddenly serious in its desire for the creation of a Palestinian
state?

The U.S. may be losing the propaganda battle on the Arab
speaking front to "the CNN of the Arab world", the Qatar-based Al
Jazeera satellite TV station, but domestically it's winning hands down
the propaganda battle for the minds of the American people.

Efforts to convince us that life should "get back to normal",
to go out and "buy, buy, buy" as a patriotic duty, to return to the
airways without fear, love everybody, return to family stands in sharp
contrast with the content of popular media news and information programs.

These bombard us with in depth reports on the anthrax scare, small
pox and other bioterrorism speculations, repeated reports of nuclear
capabilities in the hands of foreign terrorists, of deadly pollution
attacks on vulnerable air systems in office buildings and homes,
terrorists crop spraying planes, truck tankers of toxic materials ramming
buildings and on and on.

We are faced with airports swarming with
armed, uniformed soldiers and daily security lapses, all driving us into a
frenzy to "kill, kill, kill the terrorists and end this madness!"

Strange to some, the most vociferous practitioner in this
propaganda effort is National Public Radio (NPR).

It would
appear the decision was made at the top of the corporate media
hierarchy to target that "sophisticated" American audience least accepting
of network TV news and analyses and the mainstream media; the
searchers for "alternative" sources that they believe NPR represents.

As a practicing journalist for more than forty years, thirty of
which were spent working out of North and West Africa and the Middle
East, I know something about the news and analyses the American people
are provided from those parts of the developing world.

We are
not told the truth. And, of the little we are told most is a distortion of
the truth to make the U.S. look like "the good guys".

What we're
getting today from Afghanistan and environs is no different. How can
anyone expect the American people to know "why they hate us so"?

The fact is they do not hate the American people. They hate the
policies of succeeding U.S. administrations.

Yes, they are
politically sophisticated enough to make that important distinction. The
war being waged against Afghanistan today is a monstrous act of State
terrorism.

If allowed by the peoples of the world it will be
extended to Iraq, and later to the other "rogue states" of U.S.
determination, opening the floodgates to a devastating race war
divided along the global color line.

In 1915 W. E. B. Du Bois
wrote: "Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a
belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable
probability be what colored men make it."

It is this "reasonable
probability" the "war against terrorism" is intended to prevent. But, it
will only delay the inevitable.